Wednesday, March 06, 2013 9:07 pm

Triple slaying leaves mark on Wyoming town

By MATTHEW BROWNAssociated Press

The wide-open sagebrush flats along the Montana-Wyoming border make it easy to spot strangers passing along the bumpy dirt roads that crisscross the sparsely populated town of Clark. So it was perhaps no surprise when authorities announced a quick arrest following the triple slaying of a woman and her parents.

Yet, even with a pair of teenage suspects in custody, residents said they remain on edge. The violence has dispelled any notion that they were somehow shielded from the world's problems in their rural enclave tucked against the Beartooth Mountains.

"We're lulled into a false sense of security in a way," said Jerry Ruth, a volunteer fire fighter in Clark who moved to Wyoming after retiring as a Maryland policeman five years ago. "We're all thinking we're in a little piece of heaven out here and nothing's going on."

The shootings took place at the end of a road surrounded by ranchland and scattered houses, several miles from a state highway that connects the town's roughly 300 residents to the broader world.

Stephen Hammer, 19, and Tanner Vanpelt, 18, told investigators they stole a trove of handguns from a gun store in Cody last week. They hoped to flee to Denver to sell the weapons, authorities said Wednesday.

The pair took a roommate's car and drove 35 miles north to Clark, to steal an Audi SUV for the trip to Colorado, according to court documents and Park County Sheriff Scott Steward.

The vehicle was owned by a woman who was friends with Hammer's family, Steward said.

The teens allegedly told authorities that after Ildiko Freitas, 40, argued against giving them the vehicle, they shot and killed her and her parents, Janos Volgyesi, 69, and Hildegard Volgyesi, 70.

Steward credited neighborly vigilance with the quick arrests in the case, just a few miles from the crime scene.

Two neighbors who found the victims' dog on the loose called authorities after discovering the bodies when they went to return the animal.

Ruth had responded to the shooting with the fire department and was leaving the scene when he spotted the Audi. "It kind of sticks out in a cowboy town," he said.

He started trailing the vehicle, calling in his location to 911 as it headed toward the highway, and minutes later the suspects were apprehended by the Wyoming Highway Patrol at the edge of Clark.

"The tragedy is for the victims' family, but it's a tragedy in the community of Clark, too, because it's so tight-knit," Steward said. "No doubt some of the EMTs and some of the firemen knew these people."

The teens face 11 felony counts each, including murder charges that could carry the death penalty.

After Hammer and Vanpelt were ordered held without bond Tuesday, family members of the victims in the courtroom embraced and later gathered at the house where the killings took place.

John Freitas, Ildiko's husband, who works in oil and gas drilling, was away at the time of the shootings.

The Volgyesi's son, Thomas, said earlier this week that his parents kept to themselves but "were absolutely loving and the most caring people you would ever meet."

Guns are generally accepted as part of everyday life in this part of northwest Wyoming, where hunting is a popular pastime and grizzly bears roam the forests.

A 6,000-piece museum dedicated to firearms is located a few blocks from the courthouse where Hammer and Vanpelt stood before the judge. A hotel just a few blocks the other way stages Old West-style shootout re-enactments during the summer months.

Yet, murders are rare here, and the slayings stood out both for their brutal nature and the young age of the defendants. Steward said that in his 22 years in Park County, the only killings he's dealt with in the rural areas of the county were two murder-suicides, both in the 1990s.

Clark resident Jennifer Bays, who lived next to Hammer's family before his mother and stepfather divorced and moved away, said he was polite and well-behaved as a youngster. He spent so much time with her two children that "he was like a third kid to us," she said.

Cody teens who said they know the suspects said they recently lived in an apartment together, and had become heavy users of drugs, including methamphetamine, marijuana and prescription pills.

"Tanner was a very good kid until just a couple months ago," said Jordan Roof, 19, who said he lived in the apartment with the suspects for about two months. "It sucks. All this over a car."

Steward said he had no personal knowledge of hardcore drug use, but Vanpelt had in recent months had a run-in with law enforcement in Montana for marijuana possession.

The suspects were not tested for drugs after their arrest, Steward said.

He added that he never saw any violence from Hammer or Vanpelt.

Hammer allegedly told investigators he was "sorry for shooting `that lady.'" Vanpelt said "they had not planned it to go down this way."

The two 9mm handguns allegedly used in the slayings were found in an irrigation pipe several miles from the shooting scene.

A search of the Cody apartment where the suspects resided turned up at least eight more handguns and twelve boxes of ammunition. A search warrant said Vanpelt and Hammer acknowledged stealing those weapons and the ones used in the shootings on Feb. 26 from Cody Sports and Pawn.